revenge of the scammed anthology fully funded

The Revenge of the Scammed Anthology’s indiegogo was fully funded on Saturday! I’ve not been home so I haven’t been able to write something proper for it, but this is going to be my attempt. There’re ten more hours of funding, so if you feel like getting in on this, there’s just a bit of time left.

This is a thank you. It’s just the beginning of the thank yous I owe, and I’ll keep learning how to thank you all better.

Where to even begin. When I found out that my bank account was cancelled and all my money was gone, I was devastated. This happened on Thanksgiving Day, and I pretended nothing had happened so I didn’t ruin the holiday for anyone. Also, i couldn’t call the bank till the next day, so I just held on, hoping for the best. The best, as you all know, did not arrive, and Wells Fargo told me, essentially, that everything is my fault and not only will they not help me, they won’t even be my bank anymore.

So I ran all over town, talking to police, and so on to figure something out. Nothing happened, until Nate Tower decided we should do something about it and he pushed this anthology forward and I set up the indiegogo.

I honestly never imagined anything would happen with this. I thought we’d make a couple hundred dollars to make the anthology and that’d be it. It would go away and I’d keep trying to dig myself out of the hole I found myself in. Nate even asked me the first day if I thought we’d make $100, and I said maybe. Within twelve hours we had raised $1,000.

I say we, but I really mean you.

All of you have been so unbelievably amazing. None of this would have happened without the many contributors or without the funders. Some of you did both, and I can’t thank you enough. JA Tyler, Ryan W Bradley, J David Osborne and Broken River Books, Phil Jourdan and Perfect Edge Books, Ryan Werner and Passenger Side Books, Pure Slush, Sam Snoek-Brown, Susan Tepper, Alex S Johnson, Alex Pruteneau, Ben Tanzer, Gregory Sherl, and I’m probably missing someone but I hope not. These are the people who gave extra to make this happen, and then there are the contributors to the anthology. There’s no final line-up yet, but I want to thank everyone who submitted something and tried to help me out. I want to thank everyone who liked us on facebook or shared it on facebook or twitter or anywhere else.

I’m forever in your debt and I owe you all so much. You’ve given me the ability to start again and push forward without a stone around my neck called debt.

I’ve since started banking with a credit union, which is pretty awesome. Wells Fargo also decided to cancel my credit card, so there’s that inconvenience too. I’m finding new work, though, so I’m actually fine now. I would’ve been pretty crippled for the first half of this year, having all that debt hanging over me, but now I can get back to doing what matters.

I’ll be starting on the rewards that I specifically owe soon, so expect some singing and some painting, as well as a few biographies, and a novella.

I wish I could tell you all how much this means to me, how beautiful and wonderful I think you all are. It’s amazing what this community of writers have done for me. I’ll be seeing as many of you as I can at AWP, and I’ll try to grab most of you a beer, or something.

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Reblogged this on Samuel Snoek-Brown and commented:
There are, as of 3 pm PST, still almost 9 hours left to contribute to the Revenge of the Scammed Anthology — and, if you’re interested, pick up a signed copy of my chapbook — but folks, we have officially helped out Edward J Rathke. The project has been funded and we’ve rescued a fellow writer’s year! This is huge news.

This post I’m reblogging here is Rathke’s own heartfelt outpouring of thanks to all you who made this possible (and I know some of you who read my blog contributed to this project, and you have my thanks, too). Go check it out.

But you can still contribute if you want, especially if you’re keen to grab one of the very cool perks on offer!